“Apple says the delays are due to high demand for the all-in-one desktop computer, its largest model yet,” Newman reports. “‘The new iMac has been a huge hit and we’re working hard to fulfill orders as quickly as possible,’ Apple’s official statement says. ‘We apologize for any inconvenience or delay in delivery this may cause our customers.'”
Newman reports, “Unofficially, the 27-inch iMac has display problems… Predictably, Apple is not talking about those issues, but BroadPoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall lays the blame squarely on ATI’s graphics cards. ‘They should’ve stuck to Nvidia,’ Marshall told MacNewsWorld. Apple uses ATI cards in both its 27-inch iMacs and one of its 21-inch models, but only the larger models have been delayed.”
“Last week, the company delayed shipments by two weeks. Computerworld reports that other retailers have followed suit. Mac Connection, Amazon.com and ClubMac.com are among the authorized Apple resellers that won’t have the 27-inch iMac in time for Christmas,” Newman reports. “If you absolutely must have the iMac by then, MacMall’s Web site says the iMac ‘usually ships within 5 to 7 business days,’ and New York retailer B&H has the quad-core 27-inch iMac in stock.”
Full article here.
“Individual cases which will always happen by the hundreds or even thousands…”
Nice.
rws: Nice.
That’s the thing with even tiny percentages when the total numbers are really huge: Even tiny fractions of a percent can then still number in the thousands.
Which is why internet forums are not a plausible source for the determination whether problems are actually significant on the whole or not.
Stuff always happens – the question is not so much the absolut number but the relative percentage.
ATI cards? Really? Apple should have stuck with nVidia?
If I remember correctly, was not the 2008 Mac Book Pro plagued by faulty chips that nVidia distributed, not only to Apple, but to other PC manufacturers, and they all had to sue nVida to acknowledge that they had shipped bad parts. Then an investigation discovered that nVidia was fully aware of the situation and was attempting to pull a fast one on everybody. If you look carefully, you can still find Apple has extended a recall on those models that might have gotten one of those nVidia chips.
My iMac i7 27″ arrived several weeks ago.
No problems—beautiful—I bought it for its beauty.
But in tracking TNT courier delivery from China it seems it was
inexplicably returned to the factory from the airport for several days.
ping: I also ordered my 27″ i7 on Black Friday here in Germany, got the first quote for arrival on December 28th but recently received notice that they were able to advance arrival to the 17th after all.
And MacMall informed me today that my order ‘has been tagged as Backordered with an ETA to our Memphis facility of 12/28/09.”
Ping, was your order placed directly with Apple or through a reseller?
I ordered directly in the online Apple Store.
The DP-to-DVI adapter actually arrived today already…
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I figured as much.
There are numerous reports of buyers who purchased i7 iMacs after the date of my order who have already received them. There is no excuse for this, as my understanding is the i7 iMacs are build-to-order units. It seems rather obvious that Apple is giving preference to orders from certain channels (i.e. their own stores) and giving lower priority to orders coming from the authorized reseller channel. If this is indeed Apple’s policy when supplies are constrained, it should be publicly acknowledged.
Apple should ship orders in the order that they are received and not give preference to their own internally-generated orders. To do otherwise reduces MacMall and all of the other resellers to the level of second class or third class merchants. I would imagine that this situation is not pleasing to MacMall nor to any of the other authorized Apple resellers. It sure isn’t pleasing to me, as it looks like it is going to take more than six weeks to receive a computer ordered on Nov 27.
cheater: It seems rather obvious that Apple is giving preference to orders from certain channels (i.e. their own stores) and giving lower priority to orders coming from the authorized reseller channel. If this is indeed Apple’s policy when supplies are constrained, it should be publicly acknowledged.
Indeed, if that is the case.
cheater: Apple should ship orders in the order that they are received and not give preference to their own internally-generated orders. To do otherwise reduces MacMall and all of the other resellers to the level of second class or third class merchants.
Also agreed, and it would cast a dim light on Apple to make such a distinction to begin with if they are really doing that.
Do you know when the dealer actually entered the order into Apple’s processing systems? Mine obviously landed in the system on the (central european) evening of November 27th but that was still several hours ahead of the US time zone, so the sheer mass of Black Friday orders may be the issue here, especially if your dealer entered the actual order on the next day or even later.
There is also another potential wrinkle to this story, however: If there should be payment delays or other complications on the side of the reseller towards Apple, Apple may correspondingly delay the insertion of new orders into the global queue until outstanding issues are resolved.
I’m not saying that that’s really the most likely explanation, but unfortunately dealers sometimes bolster their own available capital by delaying due payments to their suppliers, knowing that most customers will easily accept any resulting complications as the manufacturer’s fault.
Ping, I do realize the time difference between Germany and the US, and acknowledge that I don’t have a large data set and that what I do have is anecdotal evidence from various Mac forums. But there are several reports of i7 iMacs ordered the first week of December via the Apple Store having already been received.
I had ordered mine via bank transfer, so the actual production slot was allocated a few days after my initial order when Apple actually received my payment.
The effective order date when that happened was the 2nd of December in my case (only listed in the invoice, not in the online tracking status).
It might be interesting what Apple’s order tracking system says for your machine. You might want to ask your dealer for the Apple Order Number; Together with the target ZIP code you should be able to track the processing status directly.
One other point may be that Apple wants to get pre-paid orders out of the way as quickly as possible, maybe in view of the approaching end of the quarter to keep the books as uncluttered from overhanging payments as possible.
Just speculation, of course, but such things can matter.
Of course given the fact that they’ve already got my money, I do appreciate them hurrying up at last…
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I had ordered mine via bank transfer, so the actual production slot was allocated a few days after my initial order when Apple actually received my payment.
I paid via credit card and have confirmed a pending charge was almost immediately placed on that card.
It might be interesting what Apple’s order tracking system says for your machine. You might want to ask your dealer for the Apple Order Number; together with the target ZIP code you should be able to track the processing status directly.
An excellent suggestion; I’ll give it a try.
Marketing gone mad
Apple fanboys are accusing their favour cult of spoiling Christmas for withdrawing the broken iMacs from sale in the run up to Christmas.
Apple has denied that the reason for the withdrawal is because the iMac is fast becoming an expensive lemon with cracked screens, faulty graphics or dodgy chips, claiming that the withdrawal is due to a shortage of supply.
It seems that Apple fanboys would rather believe that, than admit that the new range of expensive iMacs are actually poor quality. It also means that they can moan that Apple has spoiled Christmas for them by not supplying the machines in time.
What is amusing is the range of excuses that Apple suppliers are giving fanboys for the lack of product. Although some users on the forum were told by Apple their shipments had been delayed by red tape while in transit, one person was told that the manufacturer in China was waiting for parts, while another said their insurance company informed them that “cracked screens” were behind a huge backlog of orders.
Several reports from Apple resellers that all shipments of 27-inch iMacs have been delayed by 2 weeks as Apple is in the process of replacing the graphics card. If this is true than it is odd that the only part of the iMac which has not been identified as causing grief is being replaced.
While we think it fair that Apple has withdrawn an obviously faulty product range from sale, we do not think it fair on the poor fanboys not to tell them the real reason. After all they are going on thinking, despite all evidence, that the iMac is worth the money they paid for it.
cheater: I paid via credit card and have confirmed a pending charge was almost immediately placed on that card.
Yes, but that is no payment but merely a reservation of future payment – Apple doesn’t have your money yet.
Mine is already burning a hole in their account…
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Poor Ranting Phobe: Apple fanboys are accusing their favour cult of spoiling Christmas for withdrawing the broken iMacs from sale in the run up to Christmas.
Apple has denied that the reason for the withdrawal is because the iMac is fast becoming an expensive lemon with cracked screens, faulty graphics or dodgy chips, claiming that the withdrawal is due to a shortage of supply.
The fact that my iMac has been advanced instead of delayed already nullifies your claim.
Delays on delivery are always frustrating, but there is obviously no universal holdup.
Ping: Yes, but that is no payment but merely a reservation of future payment – Apple doesn’t have your money yet.
Perhaps, but I am not the reason they don’t have it. The money is theirs when and if they can supply the ordered product to their authorized reseller.
The answer I seek is why the “two week delay” in my specific case is likely to be three times that.
cheater: Perhaps, but I am not the reason they don’t have it. The money is theirs when and if they can supply the ordered product to their authorized reseller.
Of course; I would just squeeze the reseller to divulge the details of their actual order to Apple and its recorded status. If the reseller indeed ordered it immediately on Black Friday and Apple is just dragging its feet, the ball is indeed in Apple’s court.
MDN word: degree, as in third ~
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my company has bought almost 50 of the store model quads and not a problem in the bunch. all the reports seem to be of the i7 which are built to order and shipped to the customer. probably via Fed Ex or UPS or some combo of DHLInternational and one of them. the earlier two companies don’t have a perfect record for proper handling so it is possible that boxes were dropped, things rattled around, stood up on the shorter end when they shouldn’t have been, had something heavy stacked on top. left over the weekend in a hot warehouse. who knows. but any of those things could have been a factor in the shattered glass, dislodged ram, loosened connector etc that could screw up the computer.
given all the hype about the quad cores and just the fact that it is a desktop processor at last I can believe that demand is the key factor.
I just noticed there’s a 27″ 3.06 GHz iMac in Apple’s refurbs. If the problem is the GPU, perhaps we’ll see some adjusting there?
My i7 has indeed arrived on the indicated date.
No glass damage or otherwise visible defects are apparent.
I had it acclimating from the rather cold outside/storage temperatures for about two hours. With all due impatience, I expect it to be safer in winter to wait a while before powering it up to reduce the thermal shock.
It’s now copying the configuration from my PowerMac TimeMachine backup. This will take a while.
The noise level is very low – the external FireWire harddisk is quite a bit louder than the iMac itself.
So far none of the dire predictions has applied to mine. But maybe it’ll still blow up in a puff of smoke after all…
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Ping: <1>Of course; I would just squeeze the reseller to divulge the details of their actual order to Apple and its recorded status. If the reseller indeed ordered it immediately on Black Friday and Apple is just dragging its feet, the ball is indeed in Apple’s court.</i>
Initial response from reseller suggests it is indeed an Apple-caused delay, though hard data is not at hand yet.
Just to recap, BTO i7 iMac ordered…
a) from reseller on 11/27, not expected to be received by reseller until 12/28
b) from Apple Store on 12/9, according to tracking is en route and will be received by purchaser in 12/18.
I am not a happy camper (and it has nothing to do with Christmas delivery).
The key question will be when your reseller effecively made the order to Apple. If they have nothing to hide, they can surely show you the order status page. Given the significant delay, it is not unreasonable for you to to take a closer interest, even if that will probably not change anything.
This is posted from my i7 – not a single problem thus far.
I would say the probability of yours being flawless as well is quite high, and you will not be disappointed. It is well worth every cent pre-paid and every day I’ve waited!
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i ordered my 27″ imac from macmall on december 2nd and it still hasn’t shipped.
an honest update on the situation would have been helpful.
macmall and apple’s silence on the situation seems unethical and in the best interest of maintaining their profit margins.
so much for them valuing my customer loyalty…
i feel like an idiot for expecting more from them
As with cheater above, have your reseller show you the actual order they put into the apple order system, including order date and shipment release – or the reason stated for holding it.
Otherwise it may not be as clear cut that it’s really Apple at fault there. As I said above: My direct order was processed without undue delay.
Ping, info received from various sources confirms that Apple does indeed intentionally impose a delay in shipment of popular products ordered via the reseller channel. MacMall provided info that they placed my order with Apple moments after I placed it with them.
What annoys the crap out of me is that Apple doesn’t in any way indicate that ordering an Apple product from an authorized reseller (that Apple themselves recommends!) will take roughly three times longer to receive due to delays they themselves impose. And that’s dishonest business in my book.
My i7 iMac ordered on 11/27 finally arrived on 12/28 (but should have arrived on 12/24 had not our UPS driver (erroneously?) reported us as closed that day.
No problems whatsoever with the unit and yes, it was worth the wait. But I still feel Apple’s shipping policies in re: direct vs reseller channel are, simply put, scummy and dishonest.
Apple of course can’t publically state that they’re de-prioritizing reseller orders.
Although I still have suspicions about possibly some resellers operating on a thin capital reserve and giving Apple reasons for such behaviour…
Anyway — I’m glad to hear that your machine has finally arrived. And yes, I remember my own impatience all too well!
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Good to hear you’re satisfied with it. I still am with mine as well.
So all the best and a great new year to you with your new shiny toy — I know I will have a good one with mine!
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